As task forces meet, Danbury schools upgrade security

Eileen FitzGerald

Updated 11:29 pm, Sunday, February 10, 2013

DANBURY -- As they await any proposed new state guidelines for school security, city officials and educators already have ordered some changes they believe will make the district's 18 public schools safer -- upgrading door locks, buying more two-way radios, adding panic buttons and increasing camera surveillance.

The district also will bring back a consultant who guided security work in 2004 to advise them how to update the buildings now.

The schools' safety task force, which includes city and school officials, parents and Immaculate High School Principal Joe Carmen, met for the first time Thursday night. Their meeting came as two state task forces formed after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings are working on their own recommendations.

Paul Estefan, Danbury's director of emergency management, said the city did a lot of work in 2004 on crisis management and school security but technology has changed.

"There was a lot of recommendations that were made at the time and a lot of work that the board has done in the past seven years," Estefan said.

The schools already purchased 80 new two-way radios at a cost of $30,000, Finance Director Joseph Martino told the panel.

"This allows you to have communication with the outside world when you are inside the school," Martino said.

"One issue was the need for the principals to have constant communication, to have it as instantaneously as possible and as constant as possible," Schork said.

Another concern for the administrators was that the emergency procedures throughout the district be as consistent as possible so staff who move from building to building and substitute teachers would know the procedures to follow no matter which building they are in, Schork said.

She said principals also hoped that police officers would have certain building assignments because having a familiar person would be a great support to the staff there.

Bocaccio said principals also wanted to have uniformity in the way staff handled guests entering the building, including a clearer definition of which visitors can be allowed inside, Bocaccio said.

Board member Annrose Fluskey-Lattin, a member of the panel and a teacher in New York state, asked if there could be a school alarm, as familiar as the fire alarm to warn children and teachers that they are locked down.

She also said members of the public would expect the panel to hear their views on having armed guards in all the schools.

Mayor Mark Boughton said that the question about armed guards is, "Is it even possible?"

Apart from cost, there is not the manpower to allow trained police officers in every school, he said.

For that reason, Boughton urged the panel to wait for the two state task forces to present their findings.

Boughton chairs the Connecticut Conference of Municipalities Task Force on school safety, which plans to create a state clearing house so all schools would have the same data from which to make individual decisions.

In addition, he said he hopes the state will create an academy to train safety advocates, the non-armed security staff who work in many schools. They would be trained in things like first aid, police protocols and lock-down drills, he said.

The panel plans to discuss the mental health services in the district at its next meeting.